Thursday's problem occurred when the first and second stages of a booster rocket, launched from the Soviet-era cosmodrome of Baikonur in the central Asian country, were separating, triggering emergency systems soon after launch.

The occupants of the capsule located at the tip of the rocket were scheduled to undertake a six-hour journey to the International Space Station (ISS), where they would meet Expedition 57 crewmates Alexander Gerst, Serena M. Auñón-Chancellor, and Sergey Valerievich.

A subsequent tweet shows both astronauts boarding a plane after being recovered from the touchdown site. But more than a minute after launch, their Soyuz MS-10's boosterfailed.

The rescue capsule automatically jettisoned from the booster before going into descent, landing at a sharper than normal angle and subjecting the crew to heavy gravitational force.

It was the latest in a recent series of failures for the Russian space program, which is also used by the U.S.to carry its astronauts to the station.

"Following the test flights, NASA will review the performance data and resolve issues as necessary to certify the systems for operational missions", the United States space agency saidlast week.

Two astronauts from the US and Russian Federation landed safely in the steppes of Kazakhstan after their Soyuz rocket failed two minutes after launch. Mission control told astronauts aboard the space station that during the landing, "the boys" experienced forces of about 6.7 G in a call that NASA later broadcast on the live commentary. The two crew members, astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin, made it back to the surface safe and sound. In a statement, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine confirmed he had been informed the two crewmembers were safe.

Russian space chief Dmitry Rogozin said he was forming a state commission to investigate what caused the failure.

In statements by both Russian Federation and NASA the crew is said to be in "good condition", and no serious injuries have been reported.

Both SpaceX and Boeing have rockets capable of reaching the orbiting space station, however they do not have the crew capsules ready.

Unnamed Russian space industry sources cited by news agencies said it would be hard to establish what had caused the incident because the booster rocket segments involved had been badly damaged in their fall.

USA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin parachuted to the ground safely in their capsule after a booster on the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft failed, NASA and Russia's space agency said. The current crew's stint in orbit will likely be extended following Thursday's aborted launch.

The existing station crew is supposed to get its ride back home in a Soyuz capsule that is docked to the station.

But there does need to be a crew on board for the first test flights of new commercial crew vehicles that NASA is supporting. The hole cause a small oxygen leak while hooked up to the ISS.